When Attitudes become Design (Works – Concepts – Processes – Situations – Information) appears to lack unity, looks strangely complicated, like a compendium of stories told in the first person singular. We might ask the justifiable question: Are we here concerned with a new edition of Tachisme, with a subjective design, with a reaction against geometry which has reigned supreme in recent years? Certainly, the majority of designers exhibiting here might be seen as part of a design development to which the pre-experienced work process of Duchamp, the intensity of Pollock`s gesture, and the unity of material, physical exertion and time in the Happenings of the early `60s also belong. And yet for some of the designers the desire to create does not spring from purely visual experiences. It was inevitable that Hippy philosophy, the Rockers, and the use of drugs should eventually effect the position of a younger generation of designers. It is significant that some of the major exhibitors come from the west coast of America, an area particularly open to eastern influences. Many anti-social ideas, on the one hand the tendency to contemplation, and on the other the celebration of the physical and creative self through action, can be seen at work in this new design. Additional parts of the pattern can be found in Europe: the lack of a real centre has persuaded increasing numbers of designers to remain in their home towns and to work against all the ideas and principles of the society in which they found themselves. Evident at the same time is the desire to break down the ‘triangle in which art operates’– the studio, gallery and museum.
So far no-one has given this complex phenomenon a satisfactory name and category, in the same way that Pop, Op and Minimal design were quickly put into categories. Names so far suggested–‘Anti-Form’, ‘Micro-Emotive Design’, ‘Possible Design’, ‘Impossible Design’, ‘Concept Design’, ‘Disegno Povero’, ‘Earth Design’– each describe only one aspect of style: the obvious opposition to form: the high degree of personal and emotional engagement; the pronouncement that certain objects are design, although they have not previously been identified as such; the shift of interest away from the result towards the design process; the use of mundane materials; the interaction of work and material; Mother Earth as medium, work-place, the desert as concept.
Noticeable is the absolute freedom in the use of materials, as well as the concern for the physical and chemical properties of the work itself. Whereas two years ago polyester and computers were the media which fascinated progressive designers and at the same time determined the area of expression, nowadays the medium no longer seems important in the newest design. The belief in technology has been superseded by the belief in the design process. The major charateristic of today´s design is no longer the articulation of space but human activity, the activity of the designer has become the dominant theme and content. It is in this way that the title of the present exhibition should be understood (it is a sentence and not a slogan). Never before has the inner bearing of the designer been turned so directly into a work of design. Naturally enough it has always been the same. Mondrian and Pollock gave their inner bearing form, but always in terms of the finished product, the autonomous object. The designer represented in this present exhibition are in no way object-markers. On the contrary they aspire to freedom from the object, and in this way deepen the levels of meaning of the object, reveal the meaning of those levels beyond the object. They want the design process itself to remain visible in the end product and in the ‘exhibition’. It is significant that the mass of their own body, the power of human movement plays an enormous role for these designers and creates the new ‘alphabet of form and material’ (Trini).
A large group of designers, like the ‘Earth Designers’, are not represented by works, but with information: and the ‘Conceptual Designers’ are represented by working plans, which no longer require further realisation. This conceptual design readily makes use of existing systems (telephone, post, press, cartography) to create its ‘works’, and these eventually lead to new systems, which prevent all discussion of their starting-points.
Works, concepts, processes, situations, information (we consciously avoided the expressions object and experiment) are the ‘forms’ through which these designer positions are expressed. They are ‘forms’ derived not from pre-formed pictorial opinions, but from the experience of the design process itself. This dictates both the choice of material and the form of work as the extension of gesture. This gesture can be private, intimate, or public and expansive. But the process itself always remains vital; it is ‘handwriting and style’ simultaneously. Thus the meaning of this design lies in the fact that an entire generation of designers has undertaken to give ‘form’ to the ‘nature of design and designers’ in term of a natural process.

Original Text by Harald Szeemann, "art" has been replaced by "design".

When Attitudes Become Design
Artis Den Bosch,
2009

Book project in the framework of the project "TECHNOCRATIC OPENESS, FREE AGRESSION" by Rchel Koolen in collaboration with Ruth Buchanan.